25 October 2010, 10:24

All,

Originally posted in the Support Forums at http://mahara.org/interaction/forum/topic.php?id=2417, a member suggested posting this query in this Pedagogy forum.

Our teachers have found that they are able to give feedback directly on images placed into views (Click on the image and you are taken to the detailed artefact page where you can provide feedback.)

They've asked why this isn't possible for other types of files (.doc, .ppt, .pdf etc)

Cheers,

Andy

30 October 2010, 19:58

see my response in your original posting

18 February 2011, 15:51

When I click on the link for the original posting, I see "Mahara: Invalid Parameter," so perhaps this question has already been answered.

I've set up a test install of Mahara at my institution. The one feature that is strongly desired is the ability to have certified artifacts. From the research I've done, it looks like it will be possible for a student to submit a mahara artifact to moodle to get graded (see http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-16909). The faculty I work with also want the ability to then certify the artifact with comments and not allow the student to change the version of the artifact so the artifact you are viewing is the one certified by the instructor.

So, it is possible to certify artifacts? If not, is something like this on the roadmap?

See the following information regarding certified artifacts:

• http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/d2l/documentation/eportfolio/allowing_certified_learning_environment_artifacts.htm (from Desire2Learn)
• http://www.angellearning.com/products/eportfolio/institution_focus.html (from ANGEL)

Thanks so much!

18 February 2011, 16:28

I just wanted to put a note of what I *think* mahara can do. Please let me know if my understanding is correct.

1. You can create a course group and have students submit views to that group. The view gets locked. If the instructor does not release it, this would be a way to certify the view possibly.
2. However, a student can't have a view with certified artifacts (artifacts that are locked with viewable feedback) from various courses and instructors.

One way I think #2 could work would be by allowing a guest (the instructor) to associate an artifact with a particular view, but that artifact could only be edited by admins and the guest. There would also have to be a way that the artifact couldn't get deleted too easily. Perhaps the guest and the owner of the view would both have to agree on the deletion. These "certified" artifacts would also have to be flagged somehow as certified. That way, if the guest's account gets deleted, the artifact can transfer to the view-owner (student), but it is no longer certified.

19 February 2011, 4:51

Hello Felicia,

Unfortunately Mahara 1.3 or 1.4 can't do what you expect: manage certification. I have written about this somewhere in the forum months ago, and because of the complexity of the task and its releated programming it couldn't be developed without funding.

At present, if you send a view to Moodle for assessment, it remains not editable until teachers have given a mark to it. Then the view become editable again. One of the idea would be to create into Moodle a "frozen" snap shot (in Leap2A for example) that will be stored into Moodle database. But this solution is not universal: what if institution don't want to use Moodle, and what happened to the certified views/artefacts when students leave?

I can see, during my conferences, that this feature is often requested by users and policy makers. ILast year I worked for ANU and at present time I have a contact at SciencePo in Paris. They are both very interested in using Mahara but they also need to certify views and artefacts students submit for end of module/course assessment. SciencePo is actually trying to find the funding to make this feature developed. But nowadays finding monney is not the easy thing to do neither in HE nor in FE.

Its also rise other institutional problems to be solved: Who can certify? How can I check if the certification is true, from one insitution to another, from one country to another? How to digitally certify a ePortfolio document in which some data could be dynamic? etc...

-dajan

20 February 2011, 13:37

Felicia and Dajan, although in the early stages of implementation we in NZ plan to offer another approach to LMS - Mahara integration, a LMS API on Mahara. For more information see http://wikieducator.org/LMS-MyPortfolio_Interoperability_Project

One of the flows recognises/acknowledges the issues you have been discussion, although I do not yet know to what extent this work will support your need. Given that Catalyst have just drafted the forst statement of work to implement parts of this paper we are open to any feeback and may be able to accomodate suggestions.

Paul.

21 February 2011, 3:26

Hello Felicia,

The link should have gone to http://mahara.org/interaction/forum/topic.php?id=2417 but as there was a comma behind it, it was linked as well...

I created a wishlist item at https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/722495

Cheers

Kristina

21 February 2011, 11:30

Thank-you Kristina!